On World AIDS Day, Afiya Center works to center voices of North Texas women living with HIV

Friday marks the 35th World AIDS Day, a day commemorating those living with HIV and AIDS.

The Afiya Center, Texas’s only Black-led and Black women-centered reproductive justice organization, is focused on normalizing life with HIV.

In 2021, Emory University reported that more than 20,000 people were living with AIDS in North Texas. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, Black women are diagnosed with HIV at a higher rate than women of other races.

“We truly believe that when people have an HIV diagnosis or not, people still get to live their life and live their life with value and live their life with quality,” said Afiya Center founder Marsha Jones.

The center’s “Living Out Loud” program offers Black women living with HIV a space to build community and advocate for policies about HIV resources, ensuring their voices are represented in the decision-making process.

The organization want to build a safe space for women to share their stories about how they continued to move forward after their diagnosis.

“For so long these conversations have excluded people living with HIV,” Jones said. “That should never have been the case, but it certainly should not be the case now where we are with the progress that we have made with HIV.”